May 17 Monday – In Hartford Sam finished and mailed his scorcher to Howells,  begun on May 13 and added to on May 15.

We are the lessees of the theatre for a week, beginning May 24, for that $1000; Frank Mayo has taken it, at half gross receipts. That may reduce the $1000 a trifle, but I don’t expect it [MTHL 2: 562].

Note: Howells recalled the amount as being reduced to $700. Powers writes that Sam was “in the throes of his dry period,” and Howells “was a little beaten down from some vitriolic reaction to his first three ‘Editor’s Study’ columns in Harper’s, mostly from newspaper reviewers shocked by his enthusiasm for the Russian realist Tolstoy and his unvarnished contempt for romanticism” [MT A Life, 507]. After it all, the two men remained friends.

Sam also responded to May 6 compliments in verse from Edward W. Lummis, an English poet and translator:

If I too were a poet, I would acknowledge your pleasant compliments in verse; but I am not, so am forced to say my thanks in ruder form of prose — which is like answering the gracious salutation of a bugle with a fog-horn [MTP].